Many of the market’s top companies with the largest workforces in the nation are touting degreeless jobs and actively removing degree requirements from more job postings. The idea of hiring based on skill rather than completion of college education for certain roles has become more prevalent at a time when workers are in short supply and the economic value of a college degree is being questioned by more Americans.
But as data emerges on degreeless hiring, there are signs that some of these efforts may be falling short.
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A new report from Burning Glass Institute and Harvard Business School focuses on how companies stack up in their efforts to hire non-degreed workers. This is important to U.S. workers, more than half of whom don’t have degrees, since it impacts their ability to get higher-paying jobs and better roles.
The total number of companies promoting efforts to hire people without degrees doesn’t mean these workers are actually getting the jobs, and in fact, there’s limited public evidence to date to support how corporate efforts are shaping up. The research from Burning Glass is an effort to quantify that. It’s based on limited data and doesn’t consider alternative pathways that people without degrees use to join organizations, such as through apprenticeships and internships. But it’s still a snapshot look at how some of the top employers in the U.S. are doing in their efforts to hire more workers based on skills versus degree attainment.